Iraq's new government

A tricky cocktail

Nobody knows how the long-awaited administration will actually work

AFTER nine rudderless months, Iraq's parliament finally, on December 21st, endorsed a new government. It is not clear, however, whether Nuri al-Maliki, who has retained his post as prime minister, will be able to provide Iraq with the things it most needs: physical security; government stability; decent public services, especially electricity; less corruption; and a growing economy to create jobs for millions of resentful Iraqis.

It may be some time before a new balance of power becomes evident. Mr Maliki was widely blamed, by his fellow majority Shias as well as by Iraq's Sunni Arab and Kurdish minorities, for accumulating too much personal clout in his past four years in the job. The new deal is meant to bring checks and balances. The Sunnis have won some beefy ministries. But if they still feel left out of real decision-making, Iraq's stability will continue to be shaky.

Posts have been awarded largely along ethnic and sectarian lines. The 33 cabinet jobs so far allotted have been roughly split between a Shia alliance headed by Mr Maliki, a largely Sunni block, known as Iraqiya, headed by a secular Shia, Iyad Allawi, and a Kurdish alliance which has held onto the foreign ministry, still under Hoshyar Zebari, and the presidency, retained by Jalal Talabani. Parliament's agenda-setting speaker is Osama al-Nujaifi, a powerful Sunni from the still-violent city of Mosul. The defence minister, yet to be named, is expected to be another Sunni.

Mr Allawi, whose Iraqiya front won 91 seats to Mr Maliki's 89 in the 325-strong parliament, has endorsed the new government. But much will depend on whether a strategic council which he has been assigned to head will have real heft or a merely advisory role that Mr Maliki may choose to ignore. As Mr Maliki widened his coalition in the past few months, Mr Allawi frequently threatened to walk away from negotiations altogether. Had he rejected a deal, the division between Shias and Sunnis would have become dangerously wide. His co-operation is crucial.

There has been further progress towards ending some niggling quarrels. Three Iraqiya parliamentarians, barred from taking office by a commission which can veto people with alleged links to Saddam Hussein's regime, have been reprieved. One of them, the vocal and popular Saleh al-Mutlaq, has become one of three deputy prime ministers, along with Roj Nuri Shawis, a Kurd, and Hussein al-Shahristani, the powerful former oil minister, who is close to Mr Maliki.

Some say Mr Shahristani's departure from the oil ministry could herald a breakthrough in long-stalled negotiations over the control of oil and gas in the Kurds' autonomous region. The new oil minister, Abdulkarim Luabi, is friendlier to the Kurdish authorities, who want to export the hydrocarbons found in their area and reap more of the profits directly rather than send them first to Baghdad. This is unlikely to happen, but since Mr Maliki is indebted to the Kurds for their continuing political support, a compromise may be found.

The biggest worry is over the failure so far to name three “power ministers” to run interior, defence and national security. Until those posts have been allotted, Mr Maliki will hold them himself. He has already shown a tendency to use the police and army for his own political ends, so the sooner they are dished out the better. In any event, it is vital for Iraq's future that they fall under civilian control and do not become political fiefs. The followers of Muqtada al-Sadr, a populist Shia cleric backed by powerful militias who have committed sectarian atrocities in the past, are keen that their lot wins one of those ministries. But if that happened, many Sunnis and quite a few secular-minded Shias would be scared. Mr Maliki hopes that the Sadrists will instead be content with some of Iraq's key service ministries.

So the new government has not quite yet been settled. And no one knows, once it is finalised, if it will stick together.